Southport killer's taxi driver took another fare before calling 999 – despite screams

A taxi driver who drove the Southport killer to the venue where he went on to kill three young girls took another fare before calling the police.

Cabbie Gary Poland today appeared via video link at a public inquiry into the murders of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, who died while attending the Taylor Swift dance class last summer. He said he went into "panic mode".

He told the inquiry he regrets not trying to help the girls. He admitted to calling a friend and taking another fare before calling 999 around 50 minutes after he dropped 18-year-old killer Axel Rudakubana off.

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Mr Poland told the hearing: "I did what I did through fear, shock and panic. These are human emotions which I couldn't control. I regret not helping the children, their screams were harrowing. I cannot imagine what the victims and their families have been through and they have my deepest sympathies.

"There is not a day passes that I do not think about that day and the what ifs. What if I had called the police? What if I had got out of the car? What if I had apprehended him for not paying the fare?"

Giving evidence at Liverpool Town Hall, Mr Poland said he threatened to call the police when Rudakubana ignored his requests to pay, but thought he had gone to get money when he went into the building.

In a statement, Mr Poland said: “I consider that I should have called police earlier. In hindsight, I wish I had done and it’s something that I do think about every day, what I should have done and how this is my fault because I drove him there. I should have checked on the welfare of the children and helped.

“I thought there was a gunman shooting at people and I believed this to be the person who I had just been shouting at to pay me a fare and threatened to call the police, so I did believe that I was in danger of being a target. I regret not helping the children. Their screams were harrowing and I can still hear them when I think back to that day.”

He said he was in “complete shock”, which is why he did not check on the children’s welfare. He added: “This was terrifying. I was in a state of complete mortal terror and shock.”

The inquiry heard a minute after leaving Hart Street, Mr Poland rang his friend Julian Medlock, who ran a garage near to the Hart Space. A transcript of the call, shown to the inquiry, showed Mr Poland said: “He just f****** shot everyone ain’t he?”

He told the inquiry he had picked up Rudakubana, whose name was listed as Simon, from his home in Banks, Lancashire, and after checking the address with him they travelled in silence before arriving at Hart Street at 11.44am.

He said during the journey Rudakubana did not give him cause for suspicion. When he dropped him off, he said, he did not realise he was carrying a knife.

He told the inquiry: “If I’d have thought he had a knife I’d have got out and disarmed him.” Counsel to the inquiry Nicholas Moss KC asked: “You would have got out and disarmed him, you think?” Mr Poland said: “Yeah. It’s only a knife.”